Savant

Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and an anarcho-capitalist. He is the author of more than eighty academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. Most notably, Huemer has written a paper on immigration in which he argues that states are not ethically justified in preventing foreigners from entering their borders and a paper on gun rights in which he argues that gun ownership is a prima facie right that ought not be infringed on by a simple utilitarian calculus. Huemer has also written almost a dozen books.

Dr. Huemer has generously offered to answer questions and to have his answers displayed publicly. Please be considerate and try not to ask surface-level questions that could be answered with a single google search.

I will stop accepting responses in 48 hours on April 10, 2024 at 8:40pm CST. When Huemer responds, I will post a follow-up thread with his answers.

A true sigma male

In the discussions surrounding the recent events in Israel and Gaza, there seems to be little agreement on how Israel is justified in responding to Hamas' recent actions, or to what extent Hamas was provoked in the first place. Even calling Israel's actions a "response to Hamas" could easily be taken as controversial. Beyond some agreement that the death of innocent civilians is undesirable, there seems to be little consensus on what justifies the killing of x number of civilians. Preventing more deaths and acting in self-defense are both generally agreed on as mitigating factors, and intentionally targeting civilians to send a message is generally frowned upon. The scale of death is often thought to be important as well—for example, killing a thousand civilians is worse than killing ten. But these few areas of agreement do not get us much closer to how each of these factors should be weighed against one another. I will detail two possible approaches below.

I will use a number of analogies, some from popular media. Spoilers for Death Note, Loki (2021), and ASoIaF follow. I did not expect to be using the Red Wedding as a metaphor for the philosophical debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but few things can be expected in 2023.

In a previous post, most people seemed to agree that human rights should govern morality. I suppose we should start with the human rights angle since it is the most straightforward. This approach begins with the assumption that all humans have inalienable rights, which can only be violated to protect some amount of other rights. These rights can be forfeited if a human violates the rights of someone else. The most important right, presumably, is the right not to be killed. Measuring civilian casualties, then, is a simple matter of measuring the ratio of innocent people killed to innocent people saved. Different thought experiments have attempted to quantify this, and I will give five scenarios that seem to give different answers.

The classical trolley problem involves redirecting a runaway trolley toward one person to save five people. Most people who are given this scenario choose to redirect the trolley. In a different version, individuals are asked whether they would push a large man in front of the trolley to prevent it from hitting five people. Most people refuse to push the large man. This discrepancy has largely been rationalized with the doctrine of double effect—according to this doctrine, using someone as a means rather than an end is always wrong, but it is justified to directly prevent a great evil, even if it will indirectly lead to the deaths of innocent people. Israel could argue that the citizens of Palestine are not being treated as a means and that civilian casualties are simply an indirect effect of their actions against Hamas. However, the threshold here still requires a 1:1 ratio. If Israel kills more civilians than it saves, on this doctrine, it would be like redirecting the runaway trolley to hit ten people in order to save five—presumably not justifiable. We would have to account for how many more Israelis would die if Israel did not take such extreme measures in the Gaza Strip.

Complicating this is another version of the thought experiment in which the trolley, if redirected, will derail and tumble down a hill, killing someone who is taking a walk. Most people offered this scenario without hearing the others choose not to redirect the trolley, considering the person walking to be less involved in the conflict, in contrast to the trolley workers. This could work against Israel's case since the second-best scenario might involve a ground invasion with soldiers who joined the army voluntarily. Theorists could argue that killing one civilian to save five soldiers who voluntarily joined the army is not justifiable, just like redirecting the trolley in this instance.

Another event we might consider is the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Proponents of these attacks argue that while they killed about 200 thousand people, they saved even more (about 1 million). This presumes that directly killing one innocent person to save five is justifiable. Opponents typically argue that the bombs were not necessary, but it is rare to come across someone who argues that, even if the bombs were necessary, the United States should have bitten the bullet and let 1 million people die. It seems a rare point of agreement then, that in the context of war, killing 1 to save 5 is justifiable.

But on a strict human rights approach, that context should be irrelevant. Humans are individuals, and individuals do not become less innocent just because their leaders elect to declare war. So on a purist human rights approach, people's inclinations seem to have contradictory results. A final example is the anime series Death Note, in which Light Yagami saves about 20 times as many people as he kills, and saves about 200 times as many innocent people as he kills [source]. Most of Yagami's is almost universally condemned as evil, even the killings that were necessary to save a greater number (most of them). If that is the case, then this would seem to contradict the earlier consensus we saw with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would also seem to contradict the actions of his father and the other members of the Kira task force, involving handing over the Death Note to known terrorists. Kira (the antagonist) kills a small number of people to save a larger number, while the task force (the protagonists) risk thousands of lives to save one person. Perhaps a purist human rights approach is insufficient to account for people's feelings on this matter.

It was my initial assumption that the human right not to be killed outweighs most other moral values when weighted in a moral calculus. But what if that's not the case? In Loki (2021), Kang the Conqueror commits genocide on a massive scale in order to prevent a multiversal war, which would likely result (on average) in less deaths than his current approach. In terms of pure death count, the TVA status quo seems like the worst-case scenario already, so Kang is not saving lives on net. Is killing trillions of people to save a lesser number ever justified? In my readings on this, the consensus seems to be that Kang was justified in these killings because an alternate Kang would be a dictator, restricting freedom across the multiverse, even if this alternate version of Kang might kill less people. So perhaps the principle of having freedom outweighs a few trillion lives, even if protecting freedom requires killing those people directly.

It may also be assumed that if a particular war or conflict is provoked by another group, all blame for civilian casualties lies on them. At the Red Wedding, Catelyn Stark's killing of JB is often considered justified under the reasoning that even if killing an innocent person is morally worse than breaking a vow, Walder Frey has started the conflict and thus blame for the deaths of all innocents lies with him. Both Palestine and Israel would likely make this argument, with Israel in particular focusing on Hamas' decision to put bases inside of soft targets like hospitals.

Palestine often defends their actions with the principle of recovering land stolen from them. Israel often relies on the principle of non-responsibility, since Hamas often uses civilians as human shields, forcing Israel to choose between Palestinian casualties and the deaths of Israelis. Religion often factors into this war as well, although it plays a myriad of different roles and doesn't necessarily seem to be the main focus of the conflict. But it may affect how the principle approach is applied in many cases. Hamas would have to rely primarily on this approach since the killing of Israeli civilians is generally done for the sole purpose of sending a message, rather than to save others.

The hard thing about the principle approach is deciding how to weigh principles against each other. How many lives is freedom worth, and how can freedom even be measured? If we're not sure about how to weigh two moral factors, should we refrain from killing civilians just to be safe, or go with our emotions? And finally, when someone's homeland has been invaded and many of their fellow citizens killed, will their emotions be a reflection of accurate moral principles or cloud their judgment?

Until the site owner creates an official fix, I propose that people creating rated debates (from now on) add the following rule:

"Legitimate votes must be cast at least two days before the official voting deadline. After this 'true' deadline, new voters should simply award all seven points to whomever the winner is as insurance against vote bombing. Votes that do not follow this rule should be removed."

A trolley is on a track and on its way to hit five workers. Unfortunately, the people are too far away to hear you, so you cannot call to them. As it happens, someone has died, and you are transporting his body. If you throw the corpse on the track, the trolley will stop, but the body will be destroyed. Before he died, this person said not to let his corpse be harmed for any reason. Is it ethically permissible for you to throw his body onto the track?

You are a doctor who deals in organ transplants. A patient has died after adamantly refusing to become an organ donor. However, there is an organ shortage, and if you harvest his organs against his wishes, they can be used to save five people. Is it ethically permissible for you to do this?

I have a feeling that most people will answer yes to scenario 1 and no to scenario 2. In an attempt to reconcile these positions, we might turn to the doctrine of double effect, which holds that we should use people as an end but never as a mere means. But this does not effectively differentiate the two positions. In both scenarios, the dead body is being used as a means rather than an end.

Hence, I see 3 possible solutions:

1) Despite our intuitions, it is not morally permissible to throw the body onto the track.

2) Despite our intuitions, it is morally permissible to harvest the organs of the dead without consent.

3) There is some new moral framework that has not yet been developed, which reconciles the two positions.

Consider the following two options: (1) Reduce one person's lifespan by 20 years or (2) Reduce two people's lifespans by 10 years each. To me, these seem relatively equivalent. We could value equality, but neither of these people is being treated equally to the rest of the population. In terms of preventing harm to people, both options seem equally bad.

But we could break down the problem even further. Suppose we are given the option to reduce ten people's lifespans by 2 years each, and then a hundred people's lifespans by 73 days each, and so on...we're given the option to reduce 10.5 million people's lifespans by a minute each (these are approximations) and finally the opportunity to reduce the lifespan of everyone on earth by a tenth of a second.

Anything less than 10 milliseconds should be unnoticeable, but 70 billion people having their lives reduced by a hundredth of a second is a greater decrease in lifespan than a single person having their lifespan reduced by 20 years. Unnoticeable does not mean nonexistent—years are just a lot of milliseconds, after all. I think most people would rather inconvenience everyone on earth than bite the bullet and kill one person, but that requires us to determine where the analogy breaks down. When does premature death become an inconvenience rather than a tragedy? If human life is sacred, are milliseconds of a human life sacred?

A utilitarian could argue this recursively: Reducing one person's lifespan by X amount is morally equivalent to reducing the lifespan of 2 people by X/2 amount...after enough iterations, we would have to conclude that reducing one person's lifespan by X amount is morally equivalent to reducing the lifespan of 2^999 people by X/(2^999) amount.

We're also not doing some action X to prevent some outcome Y, so this isn't strictly a question of whether the ends justify the means. We're choosing between two direct harms X and Y and deciding which is worse—should we use utility as a measurement here, or something else?

What implications does game theory have for global charities? If a charity such as the Malaria Consortium broadcasted the following announcement on live television, what do you think the effect would be?

I'll discuss two things here: (1) the conflict between human rights and national sovereignty, and (2) how it applies to Israel's current status as a nation.

Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government held that the legitimacy of a government depends on how it treats its citizens. It would seem to follow from this that a government that has existed for thousands of years has no moral justification to pass tyrannical laws, while a new government following a revolution does have a justification to rule via the consent of the governed, even if it hasn't existed for very long. This would seem consistent with almost every moral theory, including utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Not to mention that national sovereignty usually comes from one nation conquering another nation, and "might makes right" is generally looked down upon as a justification for tyranny. So on most widely-accepted ethical theories, the preservation of human rights is all that matters. Everything else is secondary.

Yet almost every time I've heard the Israel-Palestinian conflict or any other border dispute discussed, this issue rarely comes up. Both sides seem to rest their claims almost entirely on historical events and on which government controlled the land first. But if we accept what I established above, the only issue of relevance would be which government has a better track record on human rights. In that regard, I see little reason to side with Palestine. Even if I concede that Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip are unjustified, it's without question that Palestinians and citizens, in general, are treated better in Israel than they are in Palestine. Even if a two-state solution is best for human rights in the short run, I see no reason to support Palestine invading Israel based on historical claims (which has been advocated for). I'm not convinced of those historical claims in the first place, but even if I were, I don't see why we ought to care about them. I'm not contesting the rights of individual Palestinians to own and maintain land, but I am contesting the right of the current Palestinian government to rule current Israeli territory. You could give many examples of Israel getting its hands dirty, but I don't think you could possibly defend the Palestinian government as more humanitarian overall. I could go on about this, but even if you disagree with my assessment of the situation, it's tangential to my larger point.

If you go back far enough, you can make the case for the national sovereignty of almost any government that has ruled a particular area. But you either get to a government that has taken power by force (in which case, what gives them any justification to rule?) or one that took power via revolution by the people (in which case, why shouldn't we support the country that is more democratic today?) So national sovereignty is largely an appeal to the consent of the governed from many years ago or to might makes right. I'd much prefer a government that is treating its citizens fairly today to one that did many years ago.

Solipsism generally holds that only the self can be known to exist. But just because something is possible does not mean it is likely. If solipsism is false, it makes sense that the universe seems to have consistent laws and that past experiences are consistent with future experiences. Dreams, in contrast, barely make any sense and rarely remain consistent. So if humans were brains in a vat, I think the probability of our experiences being consistent with an outward reality would be very low.

I have the same doubts about the zombie theory. If your brain is generating consciousness, it seems unlikely that it would be the only brain to do so. It also seems unlikely that a non-conscious brain would lie and say that it was conscious, or be somehow programmed to act outwardly like a conscious mind. Even if this is a non-physicalist correlating effect, whatever external cause is putting minds into brains probably wouldn't stop with one individual.

You might be on the Truman Show, or the victim of some elaborate government conspiracy, but neither of those things is very likely. I'm not sure how solipsism is more significant than any other theory that is technically possible but very unlikely.

Noam Chomsky is radically opposed to the concept of intellectual property:

That seems like a very clear stance. But now let's see how Mr. Chomsky feels about his intellectual property:

I'll give Chomsky supporters a chance to come to his defense here, but his position seems wildly inconsistent.

If you ask most people whether they support having a universal DNA database, they will say “no,” even though such a system is likely to reduce crime. People rarely judge hypothetical government policies on the basis of utilitarianism, and they often have a strong bias toward the status quo. Yet I think that if a universal DNA database were to be implemented, it would eventually gain broad support. We accept all sorts of government programs that violate greater freedoms for lesser results. Any attempts to repeal this program would likely be met with scorn.

Now, why do I think this? Well, if you'd asked people ten years ago if people should be forced to wear masks or social distance in the event of a global pandemic with a relatively low death rate, I think that almost everyone would say no. Similarly, if you'd asked most people 400 years ago if the US government should implement the amount of taxation we have today, most of them would oppose it. When asked about a hypothetical government policy, almost everyone seems to think that the ends don't justify the means.

Take the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an example. If such a decision were being considered today, it would be extremely controversial, even if it was guaranteed to prevent a greater loss of life later on. People would be horrified at the prospect of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Yet when these actions are judged retroactively, I've never heard anyone on either side advocate for a moral framework other than utilitarianism. Even those opposed to the bombings argue that they were unnecessary, not that killing some people to save a greater number is unjustified. Everyone seems to agree that if the bombings of these two cities was necessary to prevent a greater loss of life, then they were justified. Similarly, a draft order today would be very controversial, but no one seems to oppose the Civil War conscription order or any draft order that was historically successful in helping achieve some desirable outcome.

You've probably heard the phrase “Nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program.” Once high taxes and social distancing policies were implemented, no one was willing to accept the costs of removing these programs. It would likely be the same with any other sort of program that achieved a net benefit, so long as the benefits were very easy to observe.

So which standard should we use? Do the ends justify the means? I'm not sure that they always do or always don't, but I find it interesting that people judge policies retroactively by a different standard than they judge policy proposals.